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We are pleased to announce this workshop on the intergenerational transmission of social purpose. This workshop begins with a brief introduction and a panel to provide shared ground for discussion, followed by a focused paper development segment. 

The objective of this workshop is to explore the mechanisms that encourage the transmission of positive social values and behaviors across multiple generations within an organizational context. Corporations are under growing pressure to justify pursuit of profits by acquiring a sense of purpose that attends to broader social issues and to reorganize production in ways that consider the effects of shareholder capitalism on future generations. However, today's executives and the business schools that train them are at the early stages of learning about creating a sense of social purpose in corporations and about how to sustain a sense of social purpose across multiple generations.

Increasingly, to this end, corporations turn to other organizational forms to understand both social purpose and intergenerational transmission of values. Associations, clubs, charities, religious societies, museums, philanthropic foundations, family businesses and related actors have a long history of honing entities that operate for social welfare, civic improvement, family aspiration, recreation, cultural pursuits and other purposes that are less focused on profit. Many of these organizations, moreover, have developed the capacity to endure for many generations without loss of mission or purpose. Yet we know little about the mechanisms by which they create and embed their sense of purpose or how they manage to sustain the sense of purpose over time.

In this PDW, we bring together experts in organization theory, purpose-driven organizations and management history to explore what corporations can learn from alternative organizational forms about the establishment and perpetuation of broadly-recognized positive social value. We focus particularly on the notion of legacy which captures both the prospective aspiration underlying notions of social purpose and the retrospective, institutional thinking of cultural reproduction.

Panelists, Discussants, and Facilitators:

Francois Bastien, University of Victoria

Andrea Casey, George Washington University

Sonia Coman, Smarthistory and the Washington National Cathedral  

Diego Coraiola, University of Victoria

William Foster, University of Alberta,

Trevor Israelsen, University of Victoria

Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria and Washington State University

Robert Wolcott, The World Innovation Network, University of Chicago

Please register now

Preregistration is required for this workshop. To preregister, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/8AQ74LBijvcLdPor5. 

This workshop has two components. The first component is a panel discussion and the second is a paper development session.  The first part is open to all participants (both virtual and in person). The second component is only available to attendees participating in person and will involve discussion surrounding presubmitted abstracts. 

To participate in the in-person paper development session, please submit an abstract (500 words excluding references) for review that fits the thematic scope of the workshop. Please submit the abstract at: https://forms.gle/8AQ74LBijvcLdPor5 . 

The submission deadline has been extended to July 22, 2022. 

If you have questions, please contact the organizers: 

Andrea Casey acasey@gqu.edu 

Sonia Coman coman.sonia@gmail.com 

Trevor Israelsen trevorisraelsen@uvic.ca  

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Trevor Israelsen
University of Victoria
Victoria BC
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